SCHOOLS in Birmingham spent more than £16 million on supply teachers in just one year, the Sunday Mercury can reveal.

Resignations, maternity leave and sickness left head teachers hiring temporary cover for classrooms in schools run by Birmingham City Council.

They spent a whopping £16,531,599 in total from September 2011 to July 2012.

The figures are revealed ahead of a further £62 million cuts the city council is due to make across the board before April 2013.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) – a group which campaigns against wasteful public spending – savaged the high costs.

“It doesn’t take a maths genius to realise spending millions on employing supply teachers is unsustainable,” said Robert Oxley, TPA Campaign Manager.

“Substitute teachers are a useful way to tackle short term gaps in the timetable but handing over this much could suggest some schools are overly reliant on pricey supply staff. Birmingham Council is right to decrease spending in this area but the bill remains incredibly high, even for such a large local authority.”

But the huge figure is less than schools spent on supply staff in previous years.

The figures have steadily declined since the academic year for 2007/08 when agency staff cost schools £21,914,593.

Currently the school which has spent the most on agency staff is Bordesley Village Primary School, Bordesley, which forked out £326,594 on supply teachers.

Ten other schools spent more than £250,000 each – including Castle Vale Secondary, Castle Vale, which paid out £296,264; Perry Common Junior, Perry Common, which had a bill for £274,967; and Alston Primary, Bordesley Green, which also spent £274,967.

A spokesman for the city council said that schools had ‘delegated budgets’ meaning any spending was down to the head teachers and could not be controlled by them.

“It is up to schools to decide how they spend their money. We have nothing to do with it,” said the spokesman.

“We would however point out there has been a steady decline in the amount spent on agency teachers in recent years.”

Since 2007/08 the cost to schools has reduced to £21,510,881 the next year, and £19,585,110 for 2009/10.

Data for 2010/11 was not available.

Birmingham City Council has faced huge funding cuts as part of the Government’s attempts to reduce public spending.

In 2011 it announced that it was saving £212 million with the loss of 2,450 jobs.

In February this year the previous Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition leaders announced a further £62 million of cuts were necessary.

Following this announcement Labour took control of the country’s biggest local authority in May.